Check out our new aquatics site...
|
|
Check out our new aquatics site... |
Our fishing stories
|
...Salmon... |
|||
|
|
|||
|
Nov 30 2007 : Vedder. One last trip to catch the coho before
calling it the end of the season. We got to the fishing ground around
9am. A few cast later, I hooked this red male. Then some more
chums. And we went exploring for future Steelhead water. On our
way back to the car, we gave our first spot a few cast and I was rewarded
with a slight color hatchery coho still with some silver scales on it.
Bonk! Then while before we left around 12:30pm, I hooked another relatively
clean chum. Bonk!
A few chums and 2 coho (1 red, 1 clean) for the last day of fishing till next year is a good to end this season for my salmon fishing. |
|
||
|
|
|||
| Nov 23 2007 : Vedder. Goal is to explore for possible Steelhead locations. But our first stop was full of surprised. Clean chums, lots of Coho; both clean and red. Between my friend and I, we landed 3 coho each, and lost 3-4 fish per person. All wild except 1 red hatchery coho. We lost some bright silver coho near shore too... Amazing to see some were still in such nice condtion. And the chums were nice and silver as well... We ended up staying there without much exploring... It is my friend's first fish on his new CP so he is quite happy of today's trip. | |||
 |
 |
||
|
|
|||
|
Nov 19 2007 : Mamquam river again. This time with my little 7 year old
girl. Condition was bad. Snowing hard, water was super low, and fish were
shy. Though she hooked one and played with it for a little then line snap.
We ended up finding lots of beautiful flies for her collection... |
|
||
|
|
|||
| Nov/16/07 : I arrived at the Mamquam river around 7:30am. Since there is no retention of any Chum salmon, there was no one there. Better for me. Right away, friends and I were into fish. The fish were mostly clean and silver. There were some odd older colored fish but most were very fresh. In fact, most fish had sea lice on them still. Anyway, I hooked 20+ fish, and landed 8 fish by 1pm. I did not bring my camera since it was raining hard in the morning. So this picture was taken with my phone. This fish barely has any purple and green marks on it. |
|
||
|
|
|||
|
Nov/09/07 : Friend of mine told me that he had good success in the Cap.
using blade and roe and some coho and jacks were caught. So, I thought I
will tried my luck there in stead of the Vedder. When I got there, I already saw people were into fish. And I notice that they were using roe and no floats... And then I notice the long leaders that they were using... To make the long story short, on that day, only my friends and I were using float with short leader. EVERYONE else were bb-ing and flossing... To make the matter worse, one older gentleman and as well as others think it is ok to do it there. A well manner middle age gentleman stated that when the river is high (raised 6 foot since the dam was opened), bb-ing with long leader is the only way to catch (snag) the fish. What happen to try to catch a fish that is willing to bite? Out of all the fish I saw being hooked, only 4 perhaps 5 were legally by the mouths. Everyone else was on the stomach, anal fin, dorsal, etc... Fish is being dragged and pulled and toss back in the water... To be honest with you, I don't fish the Cap. all that much; perhaps 3-4 times a year. But this time is the worest experience that I have had. If you think the vedder is bad, go to the Cap. and see for yourself. Fish stacked up in the alley, large hook with heavy weight is tossed in, big hook set, fish on... repeated that for about 20+ times (with fish on) in an hour or two for 1 person and now times that to the number of people doing it all at the same time... No wonder I see some dead fish coming down when I was trying my luck in the lower river. |
|||
|
|
|||
Nov/04/07 : Arrived at the river just about first light. The place we
fish had no one insight. Must have been the 1 hour time adjustment confused
some people... Well, more space for us
 The water went up like 12"+. It was high. The island my friends went fishing on Nov.3 were all under water. The river was running dirty and fast. The water kept raising till like 10-ish am and we noticed the water went down slowly when we decided to leave... Anyway, I guess I have been used to a few coho landed and many more lost during a day of fishing so yesterday wasn't that good. I landed 1 wild and had 2 lost. The wild wasn't that big, must be only around 5-6 lbs. My friend had 2-3 losted. By the end of the day though, he landed a 12-14 lbs hatchery male coho (but it was red so back to the river it went). And chums. They were everywhere. By the end of the day, every few cast will produce a chum. Some of them still have lots of energy and will jump a few times before released. If anyone found a chum with a size 5 french blade on it, please contact me. I have 3 fish with spinner on them. Side stories... Nevertheless, still a fun day. I caught someone's lose line in the water, as I tried to hand line the lose line so I can pocket it and later trash it, I realized there was a fish on the other end. As I slowly pull the line, the line broke and so goes the fish... A couple hours later, a rather large fish (never seen it) took my spinner and downstreamed it until my line was broke cause it almost spooled me. And soon after that, my friend snaged the same line I broke and the fish actually went back to the hole where we fished and just was holding there. I was so happy that I can finally see what it is. With the experience of the last time I hand lined, I thought this time, I should be able to slowly bring it in. But the same curse happened and all I had left was about 50 meters of my brand new line in my pocket  Someone also broke a nice float on a chum. The fish carried the float thinking it was still hooked and jumped and jumped in front of us and disappeared downstream after 4-5 jumps. And a few minutes later, we saw the same float swimming back to the hole we were fishing. Then the float got lose and downstream it went. Same goes with one of my cheap foam float I found by the shore. I tied it on my line thinking I am not going to lose any more DNE cause of the chum. 2 cast later with my spinner, chum on, line broke, and fish with float on again. Same story, fish went downstream when my line snapped. A few minutes later, we saw the float "swimming" back up stream and holding at the hole... |
|||
|
|
|||
|
10/26/07 : I arrived at the Vedder river around 6:30am. The water was very high. The spot that I was fishing at was no longer reachable with my hip-wader. And it was even too high for full chest wader. So, I decided to fish up stream a bit of the usual productive spot. Because it was still a bit dark, I decided to try my fresh cured coho roe. Almost right away, my float went down and because I wasn't expected to hit a fish this quickly, I missed the hit. Roe was gone and I had to re-bait my hook. A couple of cast later, fish on again. It was a nice jack spring salmon. Fish was biting off and on. Caught another jack spring, and a chum and missed a couple more hits. I decided to change a bit to see if I can hit a coho. My choice was a #5 french blade. And that was the ticket. Right away, I hit a couple wild coho. One of them was around 8-10 lbs. And not just the cohos, chums and springs were hitting the blade. At the end of the day, 2 wild coho 1 hatchery, 2 jacks, 2 chums were landed. And lost a couple more cohos, 1 assume to be a rather large steelhead, and some chums. A very good day out indeed. |
|||
|
Wild coho - Vedder (released) 10/26/07 |
Hatchery coho - Vedder 10/26/07 |
Chum - Vedder (released) 10/26/07 |
|
|
|
|||
|
10/21/07 : First cast, nothing, second cast, fish on. Did not get the
chance to see it cause it was still kind of dark. 10 seconds later, it was
gone. Bites were on and off. I finished fishing my 3/4 lbs of roe with a
few hook up, long line releases, and landed 3 wild coho. Since there is no
roe left, it is time for the blade. Right away, another wild coho was
landed. At the end of the day, the blade caught me in total of 2 wild coho
and 1 colored chum. Total catch for me today from 6:45am - 3:00pm 5 wild coho, 1 chum, 4 hook ups. All the fish were released. Eventhough I was trying to take a fast picture for one of the bigger wild coho, for some reason, it always slip back in water before the camera is out.... Oh yeah, just switched to a new reel; Calcutta TE200GT. It is awesome. The HEG really helps on bringing in the big fish. This reel is silky smooth and can cast a mile. |
|||
|
|
|||
| 10/14/07 : We hit the parking lot at 6:15am and to our surprise, we were the only car there. On a Sunday? And a sunny Sunday? Well, for sure we will get our little pool all to ourselves. Anyway, it was no springs, no jack springs. I guess people fished them out on Sat.. But we found Coho. The pool has a decent number of Coho in it. I landed 3 wild 1 hatchery (lost the hatchery while before I bonk it). Friend on fly hook a nice chrome coho and lost another one but with many hits through the morning. Another friend hooked and landed 2, both hatchery (lucky guy). He also got in with a pretty large spring (only one of the day) and line snapped after 10 minutes of fight... This happened all before 11am. After that, everything is quiet. And see a couple large chum went by... (already colored). Everyone of Coho we landed were beautifully chrome. Not a hint of color in them. All wild coho were released underwater; only 1 was taken out briefly for a photo moment. | |||
|
|
|||
| 10/06/07 : Today is a fun day. We arrived at first light only found that there were about 50+ people in the canal. No worry, we went a bit off, and away from people and fished a small pool. And that seems to be the ticket. I landed 6 jack springs, released 4 and kept two and lost about 8 of them before 1pm (hook pops, too much talking and not paying attention, etc). The first fish I kept was a bonus. It was a red spring. That is another first for me. It is not a big fish but it was pretty clean and full of energy. The best thing is we were fishing away from the crowd or my friend called it "the-meat-hole", and most jack springs were nice and clean. At the spot I was fishing, roe seems to be the ticket of jack spring. But guys on Blade and Fly seems to pick up lots of Coho around me; some hatchery, some wild. Oh yeah, pinks were still everywhere. I gave up using a blue fox after I foul hooked into 3 of them. | |||
|
First Red Spring salmon - Vedder 10/06/07 |
Red Spring Salmon - Vedder 10/06/07 |
Pink (male) - Vedder (released) 10/06/07 |
|
|
|
|||
|
First hatchery coho - Vedder 09/29/07 |
Pink - Fraser (released) 09/2007 |
Pink - Fraser 09/2007 |
|
|
|
|||
|
Chum - Mamquam (released) 11/2006 |
Chum - Mamquam (released) 11/2006 |
Kids with fish |
|
|
|
|
...Henrietta's catch... 35lbs Halibut and a Tiger-Cod in Ucluelet |
| ...Michelle's catch... (Rockcod,Greenling, Sole/Flounder, and Shiner) | |||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
